In Galleries this Week: Art Battle 61 Vancouver Finals and more. Events this week include: At Art Battle 61, artists face added pressures of creating in front of an audience and a 20-minute deadline at this competition, which turns a night club into a studio; And, the video installation by artists Blaine Campbell and Megan Wilson (presented at Nuit Blanche in Toronto), on at the Republic Gallery. Vancouver Sun, July 10, 2013

Calgary

New Calgary arts authority president hits the ground running. “Nothing like a natural disaster and an eviction notice to make starting a new job that much more interesting. That’s what Patti Pon woke up to earlier this week, upon learning she’s been named the new President and CEO of the Calgary Arts Development Authority (CADA).” Calgary Herald, July 10, 2013

Western artists count on Stampede show. Stir’d UP, is 450 kilograms worth of bronze that presents six months of work for Jason Napier, a Washington State artist selling his wares this week at the Calgary Stampede’s Western Showcase. Calgary Herald, July 10, 2013

Winnipeg

Q&A: Anthony Kiendl on Web-Art Pioneer Roy Ascott. “For five decades, British artist Roy Ascott has been at the vanguard of interactive digital art. From his writings on cybernetic theory in the early 1960s to his groundbreaking forays into online networks in the late 1970s to his recent “technoetic” research work with the pan-disciplinary Planetary Collegium, Ascott’s practice has been defined by a correspondence of cutting-edge technology, new media theory and the immaterial principles of conceptual art. This summer, Ascott returns to Canada with “The Analogues,” a selection of “lost” wall-works produced in the heyday of early cybernetic theory and currently on view at Plug In ICA in Winnipeg.” Canadian Art, July 11, 2013

Gabor Szilasi uses his outsider lens to document Canada’s margins. “In Canadian photography, it tends to be the large-print folks who get all the serious attention, whether they are working in the photoconceptual tradition of Jeff Wall and Rodney Graham, or the big-print colour-documentary genre of Ed Burtynsky or Lynne Cohen. But another, quieter tradition has been ticking along, a trajectory that includes such people as Michael Lambeth, Larry Towell, Richard Harrington, Dave Heath, Fred Herzog, Volker Seding and Lutz Dille – artists who work more in the traditions of street photography and documentary, keeping to the modest scale of that genre. One of the leaders of this pack is the Hungarian-born Montreal photographer Gabor Szilasi, now 85.” Globe & Mail, July 5, 2013

Lucy McKenna at gallerywest one of the small pleasures Toronto. “Let us now, in this big city, praise little things. And things don’t get much more little in Toronto than gallerywest at 1172 Queen St. W. Or more lovely than Lucy McKenna’s very small and very evocative photographs currently on exhibit in the tiny Parkdale gallery.” Toronto Star, July 10, 2013

2015 Pan Am Games: Two-year countdown to Toronto Games. The 2015 Pan Am Games, centered in Toronto, will be the largest multi-sport event hosted in Canada. There will be more athletes, sports and venues than the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. But the appeal of the Games goes well beyond sport, artist David Arrigo said. Toronto Star, July 10, 2013

Montreal

Karen Kraven’s Magic Evident at Centre Clark. “As Above, So Below” was Karen Kraven’s second solo exhibition in Montreal, and her first since finishing an MFA at Concordia last year. In this playful installation, she presented a mix of found objects and constructed situations that invoked a quasi-mystical sense of multiple dimensions. Canadian Art, July 11, 2013

Lascaux Show Headed to Montreal More Repro Than Reality. In a memorable Gary Larson Far Side cartoon, a vacationing couple seems to survey and photograph an iconic mesa landscape, perhaps at the Grand Canyon. But beneath the tourists’ field of vision, someone sweeps dust out from under the “landscape,” and the mesas are revealed as fake scenery. Given what Walter Benjamin describes as the importance of “presence” to various experiences, these wayfarers would have been better off staying home and watching the Travel Channel. Canadian Art, July 11, 2013

Los Angeles

L.A. Times Lays Off Arts Reporter Jori Finkel, And Arts Groups Want Her Back “It’s not often a newspaper writer makes the news rounds, but when Jori Finkel, the former arts reporter at the Los Angeles Times, was laid off last week, it didn’t go over well with the arts community, resulting in a Change.org petition set up by the Hammer Museum director Ann Philbin.” The Hollywood Reporter, July 10, 2013

Cleveland

Sicily Forces Cancellation Of Cleveland Museum Antiquities Show “Sicily has canceled a major traveling exhibition of ancient treasures scheduled to open Sept. 29 at the Cleveland Museum of Art. The cancellation comes several weeks after Sicilian cultural authorities complained publicly that the prolonged loan of important antiquities to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, where the show is now on view, was hurting the island’s tourism economy.” The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) July 10, 2013

New York

Taking Cat Art Seriously From a provocative upcoming Metropolitan Museum show to adoption-ready “purr-formers,” the art world is exploring the shock of the mew. ARTnews, July 11, 2013

Making Art, Sneaking Bacon A conversation with Klaus Biesenbach, the director of MoMA PS1, about the Colony, a temporary art camp set up in its courtyard. New York Times, July 11, 2013

Melodies unheard are sexierVermeer and Music: the Art of Love and Leisure at the National Gallery, London exhibition is a triumph of lighting design – both inside and outside of the frames. Marjorie Wieseman has beautifully organised 25 pictures (chosen for their evocations of Dutch Golden Age musical culture) in four pleasingly dark rooms; the works glow in their frames and are carefully spotlit from above in such a way that they do not reflect a blinding dazzle. Similar spotlighting occurs within the paintings. The Art Newspaper, July 9, 2013

Bilbao

Omnia Vanitas Alessandro Allemandi on “Riotous Baroque: From Cattelan to Zurbarán” at Guggenheim Bilbao, until 6 October. The exhibition presents a unique way of looking at art and art history by exploring the parallels between Baroque and contemporary art. The Art Newspaper, July 9, 2013

How Technology Is Changing What It Means To Be (And To Learn To Be) An Artist “The technological changes we are witnessing will not threaten conceptual rigor or craft, nor will the ease of expression and communication make art obsolete. But these shifts are changing what we mean by art making and what counts as meaningful, crafted expression.” Chronicle of Higher Education, July 8, 2013

Would A Tax On Antiquities Help Countries Protect Their Heritage? “A proposed levy on sales of antiquities to raise funds for source countries to help them better protect their heritage has been proposed at an academic conference. But specialists in the antiquities trade have questioned the feasibility of the idea.” The Art Newspaper, July 10, 2013